Audio Column by Sukey Howard

When it comes to short stories, no one does it better than Alice Munro, and at 78, her perception, style and control seem only to have sharpened. Munro’s narratives can be deceptively simple until her subtle, skillful analysis of a situation begins to surface; her characters may look back after years to see the reality of their younger selves, or they may experience a moment, even a...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

Harry Bosch cares more about the victim, murdered and voiceless, than any other crime fiction cop I can think of and that's just for starters. Harry may joke about the way of the true detective, but he does his damnedest to follow it. In Michael Connelly's 11th Bosch-based, polished procedural, Echo Park, Harry, working in the Open Unsolved Unit, is still haunted by the 1993 murder of Marie...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

Expanding his range, Michael Connelly has entered the legal thriller-diller arena with a winner. The Lincoln Lawyer, effectively read here by Adam Grupper, introduces listeners to Mickey Haller, an appealingly flawed, super-cynical lawyer to the lowlifes. He operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car, taking on anyone who has the bucks to pay. Mickey's not concerned with innocence or...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

Waiting in the wings these past six years hasn't diminished Robert Backus, aka the Poet, the brilliant FBI profiler who became what he profiled: a stealthy, savage serial killer. He's center stage again in The Narrows, Michael Connelly's intricately plotted sequel to his bestseller The Poet. Backus has just left a calling card a desert grave with the remains of nine missing men. But that's...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

Harry Bosch, the hard-boiled, tough-tender LAPD detective with lots of smarts, threatened to retire from the force last time around and has actually done it in Michael Connelly's latest, Lost Light. But, badge, or no badge, Bosch makes it clear from the get-go that his mission, to stand by the dead, is as strong as ever. Adhering to his conviction, Harry follows up on a cold case that gets hot...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

Henry Pierce, cutting-edge chemist and the brains behind a big breakthrough in molecular computer and nanochip development (ask Henry to explain it), is the star and self-styled sleuth in Michael Connelly's Chasing the Dime, convincingly read by Jonathan Davis. Henry is a good guy well on his way to a lofty place in high-tech heaven when the ringing phone in his new apartment sends him on a...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

LAPD detective Harry Bosch is a good cop and a good guy. He's tough, serious and wants to make a difference in this indifferent world. If you haven't met him before, you've missed out, and if you have, you know you're tuning in to prime time crime. City of Bones, the latest in Michael Connelly's Bosch series, gets high marks from me. A dog finds a bone; the dog's owner,...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

Here's a crime writer whose audience and reputation grow with every book, and with Void Moon (abridged, 6 hours; unabridged, $39.98, 1570427127), nimbly narrated by Barry Bostwick, he's back in bestsellerdom again. Cassie Black, his hero/anti-hero, is one of the more appealing criminals to show up for some time, and it's hard not to root for her. She'd given up robbing high rollers at Las Vegas...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

Here's a crime writer whose audience and reputation grow with every book, and with Void Moon (abridged, $24.98, 6 hours, 1570427119), nimbly narrated by Barry Bostwick, he's back in bestsellerdom again. Cassie Black, his hero/anti-hero, is one of the more appealing criminals to show up for some time, and it's hard not to root for her. She'd given up robbing high rollers at Las Vegas casinos...

Audio Column by Sukey Howard

There's no mystery: in this one Dominick Dunne-dunit, the book, that is, not the crime. The book is Another City, Not My Own, the crime is the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, the raison d'etre is Dunne's unquenchable fascination with the rich, famous, and infamous and vice/versa.Dunne reads his quintessential roman à clef, where the real far outnumber the...